"I discovered Metric Halo ChannelStrip shortly after I started mixing in the box," said King. "Now I use it on almost every channel of every song I mix. I have a default preset that I created with the most common compression ratios and EQ center points dialed in, but with the threshold all the way up and the EQ flat. It's very quick and intuitive, and it's easy to get musical results very quickly. That said, it's also easy to dig in and make more fine-scale changes. It offers flexible processing and a flexible interface."

King happened upon the Metric Halo website and saw that the Production Bundle included Multiband Dynamics, in addition to ChannelStrip 3, HaloVerb, Character (an analog circuit modeler), Precision DeEsser, TransientControl, and Multiband Expander. Given his daily reliance on ChannelStrip, he thought it would be worth a try. "It was an immediate success," he said. "I modified one of the presets and managed to get some pretty heavy compression that was still quite transparent. It worked well in stereo and surround."

King used the new bundle to mix the CMA awards tribute to Willie Nelson that featured Lady Antebellum, Blake Shelton, Keith Urban, Tim McGraw, and Faith Hill. He's also using it with in-progress projects for numerous other artists.